Battle for Control of the Republican Party Begins

Karl Rove has declared war on grassroots conservatives and Tea Parties. Rove, who had the richest super PAC in 2012 (American Crossroads, which reportedly spent $300 million in the 2012 election cycle), has started a new fund called Conservative Victory Project to spend big bucks in the 2014 Republican primaries to defeat Republican candidates not approved by the Establishment.

Rove's big money spending last year, which was similarly designed to help only Establishment candidates, especially if they had defeated a real conservative in the primary, was notoriously unsuccessful. Of the 31 races that Rove aired TV ads, Republicans won only 9, so his donors received little return on their investment.

Establishment losers included Rick Berg who lost in North Dakota and Denny Rehberg who lost in Montana, even while Romney was carrying both of those states. Other Establishment losers were George Allen in Virginia, Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, Connie Mack in Florida and Heather Wilson in New Mexico.

Meanwhile, Rove was helping Harry Reid to keep control of the Senate by trying to defeat real conservatives nominated by grassroots Republicans. Rove made nasty and hurtful remarks about conservative candidates he didn't like.

After Missouri Republicans nominated Todd Akin in the primary, Rove told his super PAC donors that they should all apply pressure to "sink Todd Akin," and that if Akin were "found mysteriously murdered, don't look for my whereabouts." When this malicious comment was reported by Businessweek, Rove tried to pass it off as a joke, but suggesting the murder of a Congressman is not funny.

After Christine O'Donnell won the Delaware primary in 2010, Rove tried to defeat her by publicly accusing her of saying "nutty things." Now we know who says the nuttiest things.

There are two reasons why Rove and his rich donors don't like grassroots Republicans and Tea Partiers. The Establishment can't order them how to vote, and the Establishment wants candidates to talk only about economic issues, never about social, moral or national-security issues.

Karl Rove spent his big PAC money buying expensive TV ads instead of on getting out the vote for Republicans. Obama's strategists were smarter and didn't make that mistake; they spent their money on Get Out The Vote projects, which enabled them to win.

We'd like to know how much money Rove and his associates pocketed from buying millions of dollars of worthless TV ads. Television stations rebate a percentage of the price of TV ads to whoever places the ads.